Four Seasons
by Shiggity Shwa
Summary: The men of SG-1 are tasked with educating Vala on Earth's many seasons.
1. Interlude

_A/N: Just a quick upbeat and humorous story I wrote while working on a larger, darker one. The tone in this is perhaps different from most of my stories and to me it makes the characters seem a bit OOC at times, but I hope the lightheartedness and plot entertain you nonetheless._

Four Seasons

Chapter 1

Interlude

It all starts with the view of a window. She's been outside before, on Earth before, on actual soil and grass with the glorious sun hanging in the sky above. Went for a day trip to Washington where she stood on a tarmac in an airport and wondered what the hell the Tau'ri were doing to their planet. Went to Kansas for a weekend and wondered if these Tau'ri knew about the other half of their world, the flying and cities and buildings big enough to pierce the sky.

Her three days of experience on Earth was calm, sunny and warm. So when they were in an upper level office in the mountain, General Landry, Mitchell and Jackson speaking with an IOA representative about the possibility of her being able to leave the base on her own, which was immediately turned down of course, her men started bartering for her to not have to be written out each time because it was just more paperwork. She was learning that there was nothing more unamerican than paperwork. While they were talking her up, she snuck a peak out the window, interested in what she could view from a rugged mountainside, and when she found fat white flakes sailing down from the sky, she screamed.

The men stopped their chatting, observing her with irritation, huffs, and sighs, as she rushed from the window, tossed away a chair from the board room table, and burrowed beneath it.

"Vala," Daniel yelled and surely an eyeroll accompanied his stern tone. "Get out from there."

Brought her knees into her chest ready for another explosion, the ones that rocked her childhood as Goa'uld fought to capture her home planet, blasted it to bits in the meantime, sometimes from space, sometimes through ground war and munitions. The flakes were a sign of a recently dropped bomb and she didn't know why they weren't panicking.

"Ms. Mal Doran, kindly remove yourself from beneath the table."

Her mother taught her how to hide, taught her how to be so quiet she's barely visible, taught her tenacity, she could easily outwit each of them from her position and half view of the window.

"Dr. Jackson?"

"Vala," Daniel was sterner this time. She still did not answer.

There was scuffling of shoes, an impatient throat clearing from their friendly IOA representative, and ruffling of clothes. Cameron took a knee before the table, and his head popped into her view so quickly, she startled.

"What's going on, Princess?"

"The window." Pointed at it, white and bright and muted.

"See something you didn't like?"

Daniel glanced out the window, and then back at her. "There's nothing out there. What did you see?"

"The flakes," she whispered as if the word was forbidden. On her home world, they would never talk about the war, always ignored it, stupidly optimistic that each blast would be the last.

"The snow?" Daniel questioned, turning from the window to look at her still balled up beneath the third seat in.

Cameron shot his head to the right. "It's snowing? Ah hell."

"Gentlemen, today, please?" From what she could view of the General's feet, he shifted with probable impatience.

Cameron shook her foot, clad in dirty red running shoes that she plays basket's ball with. Wore them to show how incognito she would be among Earth's populace. "What about the snow?"

Daniel stopped before the tabled and crouched a bit to view her, he was always their truth test on her, can spot her lying in just a few words. Darted her eyes to him and his contemplating lips fall in disbelief. "Are you afraid of snow?"

"What's snow?"

After that they, the General, Cameron, and Daniel, decided that she needed to be off base more often and agreed with the IOA agent that there would be a mandatory excursion for her every three to four months to get her acclimated with the planet she defends every day.


	2. Winter

Four Seasons

Chapter 2

Winter

"You can't wear that." Daniel speaks before she even crosses the threshold to the room. Takes one look up from his book and then drops his head back down, eyes scrolling over the words.

"What's wrong with—Yow." Cameron drops his eyes to the ground, but sort of stares at her from the side. "Okay, yeah. You can't wear that."

"What's wrong with this?" She gestures down to her body, shorts and a tank top that ties up behind her neck. She bought the outfit the last time she was with Samantha, who laughed and shook her head when she encouraged her to buy something similar. Tau'ri are so afraid of their own bodies.

Daniel drops a bookmark into his text and crosses his arms. "Well, you'll freeze to death, but I don't know if I'd consider that a problem."

"Lighten up, Sunshine." Cameron hops off the table, approaching slowly, but still trying not to stare at her body. If the Tau'ri could stop being so ashamed for a day they could see what flaunting a body does. "While that outfit is very—"

"Revealing?"

"Cute." He interrupts Daniel and smiles at her. She beams back. "Jackson's right, you will freeze, it's winter out."

"That's the whirly one with witches?" Twirls her index finger in the air mocking the movement of what may be winter.

"Halloween?" He squints at her trying to guess, and from over his shoulder Daniel sighs with impatience.

Before she can answer, Muscles pipes up from where he's reclining against the corner wall. "I believe Vala Mal Doran is referring to tornadoes, from the Wizard of Oz."

"Yes." She snaps her finger and points at him. "Those."

Daniel drops his head against his folded arms. "You can't go outside in a tornado."

"Look, just go change." Cameron's voice is very even, too even and his grip on her shoulder feels like he's going to crack in half.

"Into what?"

"I'm sorry, tell me again why Sam was suddenly whisked away to Atlantis again." Daniel murmurs into his jacket.

She stretches over Cameron's shoulder and feels him tense as she does, his hands freezing in the air. "Because she had to fix a science thingy."

"A sweater and pants would be most favorable." Muscle's concludes from the corner, still unmoving physically or by the situation.

"And boots and a coat," Cameron adds, now a few feet away from her, still oddly staring, catching himself, and blinking it away.

"I don't have a coat."

"We'll get you a coat, just go."

The door opens to outside and a gush of cruel wind rushes at her face, biting at her cheeks and neck. She recoils in shock, trying to wriggle her way back through the door and into the mountain, but both Daniel and Cameron hook an arm through hers and pull her out as Muscles keeps trudging forward before them. They're going to a place called the drill field, which she assumed was a meadow full of electric power tools, but it turns out to be a large snow-covered ground.

The snow is up to her knees and when flakes land on her face she flinches. A limerick in her childhood warned that the bomb ash is very poisonous, and one mustn't go outside until the ash has fully settled.

"I hate this." She shouts into the calmness of the empty field. There's no sounds at all. No cars or planes or people conversing. Just a large area where snow continues to fall along with the icy call of the wind.

"We all hate this." Daniel answers his glasses growing foggy and a green knitted hat pulled down tightly onto his head and over his ears.

She's wearing one of their coats, doesn't know whose it is, but it's big enough on her to fall to her knees, almost drags in the snow as she trudges uneasily. Daniel stops her with his hand and tugs up the zipper on the coat until it rests over her chin. He even grins at her but when he steps a foot or two away something breaks against the back of his head pushing him forward and he lands facedown in the snow.

"Daniel." She assumes someone's shot him through the bomb flakes, but Cameron is laughing hard, his hands on his knees and his face bright red. Laughs until he falls flat on his bum into the snow. More flakes land on her cheeks and she's numb and shaking. "What's going on?"

"It is called a snowball fight." Muscles enlightens as he unravels a large tan and brown scarf from his neck, his face peaking out from a frame of fur on his pulled hood. He then ravels the scarf back up around her face and the heat from her own breath warms her.

He bends his knees and scoops snow off the ground and into his gloves rounding it into a perfect sphere, grinning softly at her, before turning and pelting Cameron in the face with it.

She scoops up some of the snow and marvels at how pliable it is, how it forms in her hand, and just as Daniel stands she whips her construction at his face. Behind him Muscles crushes a snow boulder over Cameron.

Daniel shoots a snowball at her catching her in the stomach and her next step in big borrowed boots and a big borrowed coat send her into a loss of balance and face first into the snow. There's frost coating her eyelashes when she stands, and snow crystalizes on all her clothing.

When she starts vibrating to keep up her body temperature, Cameron dusts her off a bit, grinning with a red, wet nose as his hands slapping her free of the snowy restraints. "Well, this is winter."


	3. Spring

Four Seasons

Chapter 3

Spring

After her constant badgering of when winter will be over, one day she and Daniel are working on research and he nods up from his book. "Oh yeah, Mitchell told me to tell you that we're going for the next outing tomorrow."

"Isn't it still winter?"

"Not really, it's almost the middle of April now, the snows mostly melted away and—"

"I think we should just forget it."

"Vala," groans into his hand, and then shoots it accusingly towards her. "We're doing this for you."

"Well perhaps—"

"Oh no," he stands retrieving his book and tucking it tightly underneath his arm. "We're going, you're going and we're all going to hate it."

Cameron, Daniel and Muscles wait for her in the same room as before, and it's almost like no time has passed at all. She skips in wearing the outfit she wore before, tied up tank top and her shorts and Daniel shouts, "Nope."

"Vala, it's spring not summer." Cameron suddenly becomes very entranced by the opposite corner of the room and he drifts away, his back to her.

"Is that the one with—" she swirls her fingers in the air again.

Daniel rips off his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "You don't go outside in tornadoes."

"A sweater, Vala Mal Doran," Muscles offers from his corner, "perhaps a pair of jeans."

She clicks her tongue and points at him. "Thank you, Muscles. See was that so hard?"

They give her a sheet with a hole cut in it and at first she just assumes it's part of a weird Tau'ri mating ritual. Daniel tosses it to her as it's still folded and when she unpacks it, the texture of the rubber is smooth between her fingertips, she glances around and notices them yanking the garbs over their head, so she follows suit and promptly becomes entangled because there's no place for her arms.

Cameron frees her hair from getting stuck and frizzing against the opening and Muscles approaches her with a yellow hat decorated to look like a duck. "I have procured this hat for you. I believe you will enjoy it."

Cameron laughs as he hands her the hat, "where the hell did you get that?"

Muscles only arches an eyebrow with a mysterious grin playing over his face.

"I love it." She yanks down the hat, over her hair and observes the world from under the brim for a moment.

Daniel returns to the room, having secured the ancient text he was reading, and when he notices her he rolls his eyes, but he pinches his fingers around the rim and adjusts it so she can see better.

They walk out into the parking lot and the sky is so dark if she hadn't just eaten lunch she would assume it's night. There are a whole bunch of squiggly pink and white things strewn across the asphalt. She halts her walking and the feel of Muscle's solid back behind hers forces her to move out into the rain, out into a sea of gummy thingies.

"What are these disgusting things?" Bends at her hips, the rainwater running down the back of her rubber sheet and under the collar soaking through her sweater.

"Vala." Cameron calls in concern, he directs her up with two firm hands on her shoulders, the water returns to trickling over the sheet again. "Stand straight, you don't want to get wet."

"This is rain," Daniel announces as he points to the black clouds that grumble in the distance.

Brushes by him further out into the parking lot, careful steps in the clunky rainboots they gave her to avoid smooshing the pink things. "I know what rain is, I'm not an idiot."

"How do you know what rain is, but not snow?"

She opens her mouth to the sky and again all the rain runs over her face and down her neck and underneath the rubber sheet. "We don't have winter on my home world. It's more tropical."

"If you know what rain is, what the hell are we—"

"Is this all spring is then? Rain and little smooshy thingies."

"Little what?" Cameron asks his eyes squinting against the downpour of water.

"I believe Vala Mal Doran is speaking of earthworms." Muscles elaborates for her; his sheet is too small and comes with a hood so three quarters of his arms are soaked.

In the distance, beyond the trees that outline the drill field where they spent their winter outing, lighting crashes down in a flash, another strike soon follows. The rain and wind pick up and the water pours over the side of her ducky hat.

"All right maybe we should head back inside—" As Cameron finishes his sentence, lightening strikes one of the taller trees on the periphery, setting it on fire with a loud crash. She startles, and Daniel grabs her arm underneath her rain cape, pulling her back to the building entrance. They begin to run, and her boots trample up all the earthworms and she feels awful.

The rain is a straight sheet now and above them thunder roars shaking the ground. Cameron drops back allowing them to run ahead of him as he covers the rear. "Well, this is spring."


	4. Summer

Four Seasons

Chapter 4

Summer

"What's the next one?" Asks one day after morning briefing her cheek dangerously close to sliding down her arm out of sheer boredom.

"What 'what' is next?" Cameron asked from the other end of the table, in the middle of exchanging inventory requisition forms with Landry. She knows what they are, got here an hour early to snoop.

"The next outing."

"Oh yeah. We haven't had one of those in a while." He scribbles his name at the bottom of the page and hands the clipboard back to Landry.

"I was hoping we'd forgotten about the whole thing," Daniel grumbles sending her a glare from across the table.

"I believe the answer you're looking for, Vala Mal Doran, is summer. It is now summer on Earth."

"And that's not the—" she twirls her fingers in the air to signify a tornado, a word she knew all along yet had no desire to say.

"For God's sake Vala, there is no tornado season."

"Well," Cameron squints his eyes in disagreement and draws out the word. "There technically is but—"

"I don't want to go out in a—" she whistles and twirls her finger again.

"You do not go out outside in a tornado," Daniel repeats his patience already drained.

She opens the door to the same room as twice before and hopes she finally got the outfit right, they're never happy with her shorts and tank top so she switched to a t-shirt and a pair of tight fitting jeans. When she struts in the room proud of her outfit they all groan, even Muscles.

"Go change, Vala." Cameron crosses his arms and leans back against the table.

"Perhaps you could start giving me tips before I get dressed in the morning instead of making me—"

"I'll make this easy. Just go put on the shorts and top that you put on every other time you've come into this room." Daniel doesn't even bother to close the text he's reading, so confident that she'll be gone soon enough.

"That's acceptable now?"

"On the military base, absolutely not," he huffs, Cameron stares down at the ground, a small grin playing at his lips, Muscles says nothing. "But it will save us time in trying to describe to you what you should be wearing."

She thought they would go to the beach, was so excited to hop in the back of an open roofed car, to have the wind pulling in her hair, to throw her legs happily over Daniel's lap and laugh. Lie on a big towel under an umbrella and fall asleep feeling warm and bright.

But they aren't going to the beach, they're going to a park located just a block or so away directed towards the military workers and their families. She grumbles, she already had sandals thanks to one of Sam's shopping trips, but ambles, dragging the soles over the hot sidewalk.

"Pick it up, Princess," Cameron complains while nudging by her, walking a bit faster perhaps to get away from the apparently inappropriate expanse of leg she's showing. What could a bare leg even do?

She holds a hand out to block the sun and feels something tapping the inside of her free hand. Daniel is beside her and trying to give her a pair of those glasses that have the tinted lenses. She opens the pair and flips them one way, then flips them the next until he stills her to stop walking and adjusts them the right way, slipping them on her face with an almost invisible grin.

Cameron calls to them, already at the park entrance with Muscles, and Daniel jogs a few feet ahead leaving her to trail behind. She can see better with the glasses and tosses a loose pigtail over her shoulder meeting the rest of the team near a rather large fountain.

"So, what are we actually going to do at this park?" Daniel asks, slightly breathing though his mouth and examining the other people, mostly mothers with their children, some running around, some confined to buggies.

"I just figured we'd get ice cream and head back." Cameron points to the only construct in the park besides a crudely manufactured washroom shanty which she's already eyeing distastefully.

"That is what you plan to conclude the summer excursion?" Muscles raises an eyebrow in question, shifting on his feet.

"I'll pay." Cameron is almost incredulous now, and both Daniel and Muscles sort of scoff him away. "Look if anyone has any better ideas, I'm kind of getting tired of—"

A yellow and black insect buzzes around her face, apparently enamored with her hair. She ducks her head back, observing it nervously. "What is this?"

"Oh, that's a bumblebee. He's just curious."

"Just leave it alone, Vala. It'll go away."

"In my experience they're completely harmless."

She nods happy to have something interested in her, happy to find something fascinating at the park besides various babies and their parents. Her eyes cross as the insect continues his flight, and then the little darling lands on her arm. "Hello little buzz buzz," she greets as it walks with six craggy legs up the length of her arm. "What are you doing this summer?"

As she asks the question, the insect digs a stinger into her skin on the opposite side of her elbow. She screams, shaking her arm, trying to get the little bugger off, and finally it, panicking as much as her, drops to the ground and zips away. Her shouting of course rouses the attention of the team, along with all the other people in the park.

"What happened?" Daniel questions, his hands forcing her stung arm straight.

"Are you okay?" Cameron asks a hand on her face to draw her attention away from whatever Daniel's doing to her arm.

"She was stung."

"Impossible," Muscles interjects until Daniel lets him see her arm. It's starting to get all puffy and red and stiff to move. "Bumblebees are harmless."

Daniel releases her arm and it feels heavy and hot. Her chest cricks a bit. "We need to get the stinger out."

"It was probably a wasp or something." Cameron digs around in his back pocket retrieving a credit card and using the edge of it to guide the stinger out. Her chest is tight, and she can feel her heartbeat in her arm. "Vala, you okay? You're not talking much."

"I—I don't feel—" Her vision begins to blur, and her heartbeat increases to a running tempo in her head. "I don't."

"Jackson, you got an EpiPen on you?"

"Why would I have an EpiPen on me, I'm not allergic to anything."

"I dunno, I just sort of assumed you were—"

"Well I'm not."

Just as her balance falters, Muscles scoops her up, moving in a jog back to the base. As they discuss how Cameron owes them all ice cream and how it might be beneficial to both her and Teal'c to do an allergy test she hears Cameron say, "Well, this is summer."


	5. Autumn

Four Seasons

Chapter 5

Autumn

They've just come back from a three-day mission that has left a bad aftertaste in their mouths. Three days spent living in a cave the size of a closet with three men and the constant bickering between Cameron and Daniel, and the smells, just the smells, hers included. Then upon returning, they were quarantined to the medical area for twenty-four hours because of reports of SG-3 bringing back some sort of space virus, and they needed to be cleared. So another day was spent together, although, at least this time they had beds.

At hour twenty-five she was in the shower, washing the grit out of her hair and off her skin, half an hour later she was trying to decide if she should go get something to eat as living off MREs may be sustaining, but unpleasurable, or to just cozy down into her own snuggly bed. Then a knock came at her door.

"Vala, you missed the debriefing." Daniel, cleaned up but in clothing very similar to what he had been wearing the last three days, stood with his arms crossed. "We waited, and you never showed."

"Oh, I forgot about that."

"Yeah, well, no one was there to argue with General Landry when he pressed us to finish the final excursion."

"No Daniel."

"Yes Vala. Tomorrow afternoon."

"Last time I almost died."

"Yeah and we ran the entire spectrum of allergies on you, so you should be fine for fall."

"Fall is that—"

"No tornados. Long-sleeved shirt, a light jacket and some jeans." He stops himself just before turning around completely. "And for the love of God be punctual. None of us want to do this."

"I love carving pumpkins." Cameron holds the door open for her to exit the waiting room, her outfit is good, and they only have to spend an hour outside. At least she got to wear her new boots, ones that have been in the back of her closet for over a year collecting dust.

"I have yet to partake in this holiday custom." Muscles is at her back again, in case she decides to spurt down one of the side halls as she did last time. In her defense these outings haven't exactly been the easiest, she was in the medical bay for three days because of a tiny Tau'ri bug bite.

They break outside, a dull autumn sun already hanging low in the sky and a long, cheap table set up just a few feet from the door, atop it are four orange vegetable globes and some newspaper. As soon as Daniel hits sunlight he sets off a timer on his watch. Exactly an hour.

"Explain to me the point again." She thumps her finger against the side of the vegetable and is surprised when it sounds hollow.

"You carve something scary into the pumpkin." Cameron picks up the largest pumpkin and draws a mock face on it with the pad of his finger. "It's a Halloween tradition."

"Halloween?" She questions, picking up a pumpkin and it is heavier than it looks. It rolls from her hands and crashes back onto the table.

"All Hallows Eve," Daniel clarifies gravitating towards the smallest of the bunch.

"Oh," she exclaims and when Cameron cocks his head at her, she shakes her head quickly.

"Okay, so the way you start is by carving off the top." Cameron digs a knife into the top of his pumpkin and it sounds thick and juicy. "Then you have to scoop out the insides."

Daniel hesitantly shoves his knife through the top of his and Muscles has already lopped the top of his clean off.

"This does not sound like something I'm going to enjoy."

Cameron hands her a knife with a thick handle and a serrated blade. "Just try it."

The weapon is similar to one she had for her own self defense while helping Fierenze smuggle weapons. Same size and weight and easy enough for a child to use. Hated that portion of her life, but she gained her freedom, she murdered as a fourteen-year-old, used the very same knife on his torso, watched him fall like a dead tree, grabbed all the cash she could, the gems, and left the weapon, opting to take one of the smuggled guns with her as she started into her life as a free agent.

They're all staring at her, Daniel with a look of sheer horror, Cameron with a calm, blank face and Muscles has paused his scooping of entrails to raise an eyebrow at her. "What?"

Cameron clears his throat and moves to rub the back of his neck remembering at the last second that his hands are covered in sloppy insides and seeds. "Maybe pumpkin carving isn't for you."

Tipping her head down, she views her pumpkin, or rather, what's left of her pumpkin as the one side is bruised and bullied and the owner of at least twenty stab wounds. "Oh."

"What the hell, Vala?"

"It just—" She flicks the knife around in her hand, tosses it and catches it by the handle as she used to. "It reminds me of a weapon I had when I was a child."

Cameron is wiping his hands clean on a roll of paper towel that keeps blowing off the table. "And did someone do something that pissed you off a lot as a child?"

"What?" When he points to her battered pumpkin, Daniel gives her a look of utter shock, and Muscles continues to eviscerate his vegetable. "Oh, yes. The weapon smuggler I was a child slave to. We talked about this Cameron."

"Oh no, I would have remembered that."

"At your reunion."

"I thought you were making that up."

"Oh. No that's the truth."

They don't really acknowledge her outburst after that, Cameron calmly shows her the proper way to behead a pumpkin and Daniel gives her a spoon to scoop out the insides, Muscles tells her to use her hands instead as to not compromise the remaining integrity of her pumpkin shell. When they're finished they line the pumpkins up along the table with tiny candles inside.

Standing back and taking in the scary faces and the abstract art on Daniel's pumpkin, apparently it was supposed to be an allusion to the original carved turnips that no one understood, and then her pumpkin with light shining through twenty-eight stab holes, she counted, while the other side caves in a bit.

Daniel clears his throat from beside her, "maybe next year it'll be—"

"They're beautiful." She claps and wishes she could save the moment forever, the comradery in helping her complete one Tau'ri tradition, the warm glowing orange, the stupid faces they made while carving stupid faces.

"Well then—" Cameron begins. He wraps an arm around her shoulders, and Daniel gently grasps her hand. From behind her, Muscles drops a heavy hand to her head. "This is fall."


End file.
